Hey Reader,
Remember when I wrote about whose reality are you living in? Well, this week my attention has been glued to the latest WordPress drama following co-founder Matt Mullenweg's keynote speech at WordCamp US in Portland.
WordPress Drama Unfolds: Matt vs. WP Engine
The gist is that the Matt used his keynote to pick a fight with WP Engine, claiming they are exploiting WordPress and not giving back enough. He even went as far as calling them a “cancer” to the WordPress community and demanded they pay tens of millions to Automattic (Matt’s company) to make things right.
Automattic would “go to war” if WP Engine did not agree to pay its competitor Automattic a significant percentage of its gross revenues – tens of millions of dollars, in fact – on an ongoing basis. Mr. Davies suggested the payment ostensibly would be for a “license” to use certain trademarks like WordPress, even though WP Engine needs no such license.
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The talk made attendees cringe and scratch their head. But it didn't stop there. Matt's been manically posting all week, even on the official WordPress.org channels. He banned WP Engine's access to the WordPress.org servers, making it near-impossible for their customers to update their themes and plugins. He's even changing the trademark policy to single out WP Engine and make it so what they're doing violates their trademark, even though other companies do it and it hasn't been a problem until lately. Matt says he's been asking them "nicely" for 18 months and it's their fault he had to turn this into a public fiasco.
He went on a livestream yesterday to explain his motivations, but it all just comes across as petty and unprofessional. We're all wondering how this guy can get away with doing what he's doing. Like he has nobody around him telling him its not a good idea. He's causing more damage to WordPress than WP Engine ever could.
​Now, I'm not going to say WP Engine is innocent in all this. It's complicated. Their biggest crime, according to Matt, is they're too greedy, using words like "extracting" and "exploiting". The evils of capitalism, personified. They're funded by a private equity firm and only care about "squeezing their customers for profit."
WordPress takes another hit
This doesn't make WordPress look good. Not at all. It's got the community in shambles and people are starting to see the writing on the wall. Folks are looking for alternatives, yet again. Companies like Webflow are posting guides helping users migrate away from WordPress.
You know I've been deliberating what platform I'd like to rebuild my website on for a year or more. I've used WordPress since 2005 and it's what I know. It's what I've decided to keep using after months of research on alternatives. But things like this, combined with the overly commercialized theme and plugin ecosystem tell me that maybe it's really time to walk away from WordPress?
The "free" and "open source" era of WordPress is just marketing speak at this point. Anything else you want to do besides blogging is gonna cost you extra in premium subscriptions. The enshittification of WordPress is in effect.
But is it enough to actually get us (re: me) to move? We'll see. Part of me wants to find a refreshing new platform to build a website with that isn't a drag. Despite all it's drawbacks, my website works fine. Sometimes changing things breaks things. It's risky to move to something else, knowing that they all will likely run into similar problems too.
But that's about all I have to say on that. Here are some additional posts if you want to dive deeper on the topic:
What else I'm up to this week:
Aside from this, I did manage to carve out time for my own creative work.
Music: I experimented with Suno AI to "extend" my uploaded audio clip with some fresh ideas that I could then extract stems from and manipulate as I wish in my DAW. I had it sing some lyrics for me which I was able to sample and work into my track. I don't know if I'll keep them or do my own vocal takes. We'll see.
Starseed Supply Co: Restocked a bunch of patches for my Etsy shop. Been shipping out orders for customers all week.
Tosha Silver: I've been vibing with her work lately. Here are some clips: Trusting the divine, how to receive divine bounty, and God is sexy.
Good reads: I finally got around to reading the short story Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian and watching the recent film that came out about it. I loved it. It's a "dark, unsettling exploration of modern dating, power dynamics, and miscommunication, centering on a young woman's brief, awkward relationship with an older man." I also enjoyed The Feminist by Tula Tulathimutte. It's "a sharp, satirical tale about the performative nature of wokeness, following a man's misguided attempts to prove his feminist credentials while grappling with his own insecurities and self-deception." I really dug his writing style so I picked up his latest book Rejection.
That’s about it for this week. What do you think of the WordPress mess? Is it time to move on to something new? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Talk soon ✌️
Jeff
The Official Newsletter of Jeff Finley
​Designer, Author, Mystic
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